Working from a series of all-night sessions where dancers spilled their guts into a tape recorder about why they kept working in the then-dying Broadway musical, Bennett fashioned a show that evolved through a series of low-cost workshops, a system that is now the norm but was new 40 years ago.

It opened at the 232-seat Newman Theatre in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s off-Broadway complex on April 15, 1975 and sold out at once, prompting producer Joe Papp to move it to Broadway on July 25.

It instantly became the biggest hit Broadway had seen in years. In the past, the money men would have let it sit there and make audiences journey to see it in Manhattan.

But Papp was not only a pioneering impresario, he was an astute tactician and he knew that New York City in 1975 was a hellhole, fighting its way through decades of economic misfortunes with a series of almost non-stop labour strikes making it a very unpopular tourist venue.

The man who toured Shakespeare around the five boroughs when there wasn’t enough room for his audiences in Central Park embarked on a bold plan: he would tour A Chorus Line around the world as soon as possible.

And in a two-pronged assault that would make for dazzling press, but created enormous logistical headaches for the creative team, he opened what they called “The International Company” in Toronto on May 3, 1976 and “The National Company” in San Francisco on May 6.

To make life even sweeter for Papp, he found out that A Chorus Line had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on the afternoon of the Toronto opening and told the Star’s Sid Adilman he felt the musical’s power lay in the fact that “it all comes through a need to find your identity. . . . My interest is in plays and works that reflect the times.”

Gina Mallett’s review in the same day’s paper viewed that theme from another angle when she said, “The stage throbs with me, me, me . . . a triumph to egomania.”

But that’s why A Chorus Line would prove so successful, a reflection of the zeitgeist that was shared by movies that year, like Rocky and Network, as well as books like Roots and The Woman Warrior, and a pop music scene where ABBA and Queen and Barry Manilow duked it out for the No. 1 spot on the charts.

What was going on? A sudden immersion in self that marked the baby boomers putting their first (but not their last) stranglehold on a point in time, what Tom Wolfe would christen “The Me Decade” in the Aug. 23, 1976 edition of New YorkMagazine.

It was a time when the little man took the centre of the ring (Rocky), when the crazed iconoclast seemed a prophet (Network) or when a series of young dancers fighting for roles in a Broadway show seemed poised on the knife edge of an existential quest. Yes, that would be A Chorus Line.

And even though composer Marvin Hamlisch would force through a gooey final anthem over everyone’s objections (“What I Did for Love”), the essence of the show rested in a quiet moment at the end of the opening number when a solo dancer wistfully asked, “Who am I anyway? Am I my resumé?”

There are a lot of theories about why this mindset came to the forefront at this moment in time, taking at its outer limit the work of “transformational thinker” Werner Erhard, whose EST workshops took self-absorption to a level that bordered on the psychotic.

America had been through the agony of Vietnam, followed closely by the shame of Watergate. A feeling of impotence, of low self-esteem, filled everyone. No wonder they embraced all the dime-store heroes and clung to a show that said everyone was entitled to time in the spotlight.

What’s also fascinating is that another musical opened a few weeks after A Chorus Line in 1975 and failed terribly. It didn’t even get nominated for a Tony Award as Best Musical.

That show was Chicago.

Now one of the biggest hits in revival and the inspiration for an Oscar-winning Best Picture, it is recognized as a masterpiece of cynicism, but nobody wanted to hear its message in 1975-’76. They preferred A Chorus Line.

Not only was Bennett’s hymn to showbiz sentiment a revitalizing hit on Broadway, but its blitzkrieg of worldwide openings (New York, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sydney, Mexico, Stockholm and Buenos Aires all in four years) set the stage for the mega-musical revolution that would begin with Cats, follow with Les Misérables and move into cleanup position with The Phantom of the Opera.

A Chorus Line made it possible for a musical to be a giant hit around the world and still command attention at home, where it finally ran for 6,137 performances, making possible the later Broadway triumphs of Les Miz (6,680), The Lion King (6,922 and still running), Chicago (7,325 and still running), Cats (7,485) and The Phantom of the Opera (11,004 and still running).

Closer to home, it was the first real brush with true musical theatre glamour for Toronto audiences. Up until the international company opened the Royal Alex, they either saw fledgling trying out on their way to Broadway or yawned through tired touring versions after the original excitement was gone.

This was something different. Bennett and his team were all here and in person, making sure the machine hummed along smoothly. There were even two Canadians in the cast: Mark Dovey (who would later star in 42nd Street on Broadway) and Jeff Hyslop, already a Canadian icon, who would return home after his triumph abroad to host the popular TVO kids’ show Today’s Special and tour for several years in the title role of The Phantom of the Opera.

“I had to wait on line for hours at the box office to get a ticket and I sat all the way back in the balcony. But I’ll never forget it,” said John Karastamatis, then an impressionable teen, now the director of communications for Mirvish Productions.

And there were thousands of other Torontonians just like him, who had their eyes opened by A Chorus Line and were ready when Canadian productions of Cats, Les Misérables, The Phantom and many others stake their own claim on our musical theatre scene.

In the summer of 1976, A Chorus Line was a megahit that spoke very much to its moment in time, but its ripple effect can still be felt decades later in a city that now eagerly awaits the return of shows like Wicked and The Book of Mormon.

That’s what a real blockbuster can do.

What else was going on in 1976?

ALL HONEY-GLAZED OR MIXED? In April 1976, Tim Horton’s introduced the Timbit to their menu.

THE CN TOWER What was at the time the world’s tallest free-standing structure opened in Toronto on June 26.

OPERATION ENTEBBE An Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by the PLF at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on June 27. After a week of tension, a daring rescue mission by Israeli commandos saved the hostages and killed the terrorists.

AMERICA’S BICENTENNIAL On July 4, America celebrated the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

OLYMPICS On July 17, the opening ceremonies of the XXI Olympiad were held in Montreal.

LEGIONNAIRES’ DISEASE A mysterious airborne disease claimed the life of 29 people attending an American Legion convention in a Philadelphia hotel on July 21.

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